Honestly, it’s almost comical how much bad luck has hit Scott Dixon lately. His luck never been great for the entirety of his IZOD IndyCar Series career, but the last two weeks have been a case study in the IndyCar version of Murphy’s Law.
I think a lot of us on the ground were hoping that Dixon’s Sonoma pit incident with Will Power would be reduced to the background this weekend in Baltimore. But as it turned out, that was merely the first ingredient in the cauldron of controversy that is boiling over between these two – and race control.
Friday in practice, the two, naturally, found each other in practice. It was a minor dust-up and the two laughed it off, with Dixon calling Power an “Australian wanker” jokingly on Saturday after the Firestone Fast Six qualifying session.
Sunday it all blew up again. Dixon had already been spun in Turn 1 by Graham Rahal on a Lap 48 restart, but Rahal wasn’t issued a penalty by race control.
And then, as you’d expect, Dixon was just behind Power on the next restart on Lap 53. And of course, Power, who’d got a similar run on the inside of Sebastien Bourdais as Bourdais did to Rahal’s inside, shifted his line to the inside of the course, clipping Dixon and putting him into the wall. It was simply surreal to watch.
The funny thing was, Dixon didn’t seem as mad about the contact with Power as he was with race control for Rahal avoiding a penalty for their contact, and for INDYCAR leaving him on track with a damaged, but possibly repairable, car. It’s not the first time this has happened; it also occurred to him at Long Beach in 2012.
We’ll let Dixon’s official quotes from the Target Chip Ganassi Racing release tell the story from here:
“The No. 15 (Rahal) should have received a penalty (for spinning us) and the No. 4 car (Oriol Servia) passed us on a yellow. So that restart near the end was a complete bosh. On the restart I had an overtake advantage on Power, it must have been in fourth gear, so they can’t complain about wheel spin. Then I got beside him and he ran me straight into the wall. Then, they wouldn’t bring the car back. (Race director) Beaux needs to be fired. He was a complete idiot today.”
Power, for his part, said what he could to apologize.
“The accident on the restart really ended up ruining two good days,” Power said. “I thought I had a really good run on Bourdais and I was going to the inside to get around him and I thought I hit a bump or just lost it on cold tires. I really had no idea that (Scott) Dixon was there. I actually didn’t even know until I got back to the pits and they told me. I feel terrible for him and his team. All I can do is tell them how sorry I am and move on to Houston.”
Further quotes of Dixon’s frustration were found in a report by Stuff.co.nz. In these, Dixon alleged that Power did take him out on purpose and that Penske Racing president Tim Cindric told Power what to say in his post-race interview.
“It was funny on the radio when we were scanning them in the situation when Power was sitting in the pits. Cindric was telling him exactly what to say when he gets out of the car. Cindric’s a piece of s***, which is quite obvious to a lot of people nowadays,” Dixon was quoted as saying.
These are not light accusations, words and claims by Dixon and camp. It’s going to be interesting to see if any further penalties from INDYCAR follow for the outbursts.
